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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23619382">Ghostly Hours</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anauthorsworld00/pseuds/CaptArthur'>CaptArthur (anauthorsworld00)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Chicago PD (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Apocalypse, Character Deaths, Eventual Romance, Slow slow slow burn, Violence, Zombies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:14:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,505</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23619382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anauthorsworld00/pseuds/CaptArthur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What silence rules the ghostly hours, that guard the close of human sleep! - George Sterling.  </p><p>When the world descends into chaos, how will our beloved characters handle the pressure? Fighting against the living and the dead, Chicago becomes a war zone battered by the good and the bad. When they run into one another will alliances be formed or will they be turned away? Will romance form in this dead society or will it all end in death?</p><p>Written in the perspective of a different character each chapter.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Jay Halstead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Three months after the outbreak</strong>
</p><p>Jay rolled over onto his back and stretched his dead limbs, he’d been lying on that rooftop for over two hours now looking for any sign of his brother and best friend to appear in amidst the dead bodies stumbling around those wintery Chicago streets.</p><p>Last he’d heard of the two of them was a pretty successful run for supplies when the radios had cut out. For all he knew they weren’t coming back leaving him sole guardian of a pretty secure base of medical supplies and an arsenal for more than just one person.</p><p>The first few weeks of this shitshow had been exactly as you would expect, hard and troublesome. His dad had been one of the first to fall victim to this outbreak, and for them, it was real a lot before everyone else seemed to click onto it not being a full-on hoax. He never turned up for his reserves shift with the army, dragging a befuddled team member - Mouse - with him. Will had been harrowed by it all but he had begun to stockpile as Jay suggested and they turned his little shoebox of an apartment into a protected base.</p><p>So when everyone began to leave Chicago they knew their best bet was to stay put. They had access to other units in the building and they made sure they were just as accessible as their first. They could live here for decades but was this really living anymore?</p><p>He cracked his back one last time before he turned his tired eyes back to the scope of his rifle, prepared for another slow two hours of searching for that familiar mop of ginger hair amidst the dead.</p><p>It wasn’t minutes before he recognised him, two bodies moving strangely quickly compared to their usual strategy of blending in, another couple rushing behind them with the same urgency.</p><p>Jay’s radio crackled back to life on his hip and he answered the call, blood rushing to his ears.</p><p>“Jay - g-et - the - m-ed-k-k-kit!”</p><p>It was glitchy as hell and he was sure to get Mouse on that when they were all safe but he knew exactly what his brother wanted, whatever had kept them out longer was surely more dangerous than he had wanted it to be.</p><p>He slid down the rescue ladder, abandoning his rifle where it lay. He caught them hurrying into the building as he made it down the corridor to their apartment. He pushed the contents of a table free and clear of it and set the well-endowed medkit on the chair beside it.</p><p>He propped the window open by the kitchen unit to get rid of the burnt food smell of his breakfast and began to fill a bowl with water, it was a miracle that their taps still worked, there would be a time when they would need to figure out an alternate source, for now, they were lucky. They could stick with that.</p><p>Mouse barrelled through the door, eyes haunted. Will wasn’t too far behind him, a boy bundled up in his arms, he lay the boy down on the table while Mouse waved the two people into their apartment, now wasn’t the time for explanations.</p><p>“Will, what do you need?!”</p><p>His hands were bloody and the boy was barely breathing. Jay set the bowl of water and one of the bottles of rubbing alcohol next to him.</p><p>“I-I,” he took a deep breath and centred himself to who he used to be before all of this, when he was a doctor and not completely out of his death in a world where zombies really did exist, “okay, I need the sewing kit, scissors, fresh clothes and some blankets. And I need an extra pair of hands.”</p><p>Jay looked to where Mouse was still staring at the blood on his fingers, and Jay nodded, “you got me, Mouse go find some clothes and blankets.”</p><p>He used the steel in his voice to jog Mouse’s memory back to when they were in the rangers, he remembered that the only way to get Mouse back into the field after something particularly horrifying was to remember that his officer in charge still had his best interests at heart. Mouse nodded and practically scarpered away leaving the two strange women in their flat as they operated on what Jay could only assume was their kid.</p><p>Will dunked his hands in the water before soaking them in rubbing alcohol. Jay followed suit, Will cut the boy’s bloody clothes off enough for Jay to see the extent of the damage. It was no bite which was a relief but without treatment, there was a chance he could have turned any day now, the cut was jagged and looked as if he had been caught on something and then wrenched away.</p><p>Will palmed the side of it, his face relieved as he found no underlying chance of something being stuck inside of there. He couldn’t feel it so he only hoped he was correct, he didn't exactly have the right tools for an X-ray or anything in this situation so this was the best he could do.</p><p>“Hand me the needle,” Jay looped the strongest thread they had into the needle and handed it over.</p><p>Will’s hand shook for a split second before he was pushing the needle through his skin. The boy was still out cold but Jay held him down all the same, it looked particularly bad and it didn't need to be made worse when the kid started to squirm.</p><p>It took less than a minute for it to be closed fully. He sealed it off and cut as close to the skin as he could manage, he rubbed away the blood with a rag soaked in rubbing alcohol, Mouse appeared with the blankets and clean clothes at that moment.</p><p>The three of them managed to get the oversized sweatshirt over him without jostling him too much before they wrapped him up in the blankets and placed a pillow beneath his head, it would be a bad idea to start trying to move him elsewhere at this point.</p><p>Jay wiped away the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. He blinked hard and sighed, glad to see both of his boys were living and healthy.</p><p>Gathering himself he turned to the two women who he could finally speak to, “so who are you?”</p><p>They looked as taken aback with his abruptness as he felt but he was too tired now.</p><p>“Maggie, that’s Natalie and her son Owen. And you?”</p><p>“I’m Jay, that’s Will and Mouse.”</p><p>Will had flopped onto the chair beside the table, his hand pressed against the bridge of his nose, not bothering to clean his hands of the blood that was now staining his face. They were all tired of this, and this wasn’t like war, they didn't get to come home after this. This was happening at home.</p><p>All of them looked done with it but most of all Mouse, Jay’s eyes found his friend trying to scrape blood off of his stained t-shirt with his fingernails. The man was fixated and he knew that look. Home was supposed to be sacred ground, where you could get away from it all, the war and the violence but he was trapped in it all day every day here with no reprieve.</p><p>Jay tapped Will on the shoulder until he looked up, he gestured at Mouse and Will’s eyes widened. He pulled himself off of the chair as they headed towards him silently. Will grabbed his arms and pushed them above his head as Mouse struggled, whinging for wanting to be free of the blood even as Jay began to wrestle the bloody shirt off of him.</p><p>It was a fight to get him to comply until they had pulled it from him with about as much success as was usual. Jay lobbed the shirt into the furthest part of the apartment before he swamped him with a blanket and lowered him to the floor. It would take them some time before Mouse was back to his usual state but they could wait for that.</p><p>“What was that?” Natalie was stroking her son’s hair out of his sweaty face, a fever was sure to set in for a bit at the beginning but it would calm down after that.</p><p>“PTSD, he couldn’t get away from the war here so he gets these attacks sometimes.”</p><p>Jay looked to where Mouse was humming under his breath and rocking backwards and forwards, he knew he might have been much the same if he didn't feel like he had to be taking care of Mouse and his brother Will. He stepped up away from his problems to take care of them, he knew that.</p><p>Natalie’s gaze on him softened, they were just people affected by the outbreak as much as everyone else was, just because they had secured a place to live as well as provisions and supplies didn't mean they weren’t suffering all the same.</p><p>“So were you all soldiers before all of this?”</p><p>Will shook his head, “those two were army rangers. I was a plastic surgeon, supposed to be going into my Emergency Medicine residency here before all of this kicked off, never made it.”</p><p>“I was a nurse, Natalie was an emergency medicine resident both of us were at Gaffney.”</p><p>Will laughed harshly, “that’s where I was supposed to end up. Didn't turn up to my first shift because we’d just found our dad like one of those. Didn't think there was any point.’</p><p>Natalie nodded, everything was much too broken around here, the fact that they might have been coworkers just seemed completely off base.</p><p>Natalie looked to the two soldiers in the room and smiled, “my husband was army rangers, Jeff Manning.”</p><p>Jay looked to Mouse to see if he recognised the name but the poor guy was still rocking and humming.</p><p>“I think I’d heard of him but we never met. I ran a team, Mouse was one of mine, the nine of us didn't really interact with anyone else. We kind of had that sort of reputation, we got stuff done, it might have been messy but we didn't pay attention to the politics that a lot did. Sorry for your loss.”</p><p>Natalie nodded and smiled at him. They were getting along smoothly all because her boy had been injured, that wasn’t how they had wanted to find allies in all this but these seemed as good as any.</p><p>Maggie reclined against the wall just a short way off from Mouse who was still humming to himself and rocking his way out of a PTSD break, whatever she might have thought about him now she had watched him snap into action when they had found Owen in pain and impaled on a misplaced metal rod. Mouse had been quick to slide him off of it and get anything to jam the wound shut. She and Natalie should have been on it, they were medical professionals, but he was army he’d been used to split-second decisions like that.</p><p>These men hadn’t thought twice about jumping in between Owen and a group of biters, Will not even reaching for the gun on his hip as he swung at them with the knife in his hand. They were manic but well prepared, the set up they had brought them back to suggested that more than ever, and then there was that they hadn’t even questioned about leading them back to their safe place for one second. They had seen a child in trouble and then they had immediately made a beeline back to where they knew was safe. It was only after they got there that they had been questioned to who they were.</p><p>These men were jaded but by too much violence, it was easiest the quickest Maggie had ever deemed she could trust some people, especially after all of this, went down. Something about seeing them extremely vulnerable here with them now after stitching Owen up told her they weren’t going to withhold anything they didn’t deem vital to them.</p><p>There was a sound outside, a car alarm it sounded like. Will barely moved but Jay was by the window in seconds, if he was a cat she’d swear his hackles were up. Mouse had paused his humming and rocking to watch Jay by the half-covered window, he only relaxed once Jay did.</p><p>Maybe Mouse’s PTSD was visible but Jay also had his fair share. It made them extra prepared, always looking for the next fight, she could see why it would wear down on them after some time. This was enough for anyone to go mad, never mind someone who had spent time facing down war abroad.</p><p>Jay shook his head as he returned to the table, he nodded to Will before he made to leave the apartment, no one made the move to stop him but only when Will was sure he had taken his walkie with him.</p><p>Jay couldn’t deal with waiting for the next shoe to drop, he couldn’t prepare for anything when he was listening for every bump outside from within. He had to get back to the roof, his snipers nest and safest point. He had a view to every street, especially the main one which he monitored constantly, he did not want anyone getting the jump on him. They would never have the chance.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Sylvie Brett.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Sylvie Brett</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sylvie hustled down the street, her hood up and her backpack full. She was very aware that even though the street was empty she wasn’t free of danger, she took longer routes back home than was needed but in her experience, you couldn’t be too prepared.</p><p>Her feet were quick and quiet, she couldn’t afford to be heard both by the living and the dead. She had seen what the dead could do to you first hand, the fact that more first responders hadn’t been savaged was one of the true miracles.</p><p>She’d first encountered it on a call, there was no way someone missing half their face could still be alive but her and her ambo partner had brought them into Med anyways. They hadn’t expected to pull up with the man strapped to a gurney only to have the security guard shoot him in the head on site.</p><p>There was no acceptable excuse for what had happened. An outbreak. A disease. A pandemic.</p><p>Whatever had happened she hadn’t gone back to work the next day. She’d hyperventilated in her house and wished she’d never left Fowlerton.</p><p>And then there was the news, it was all over the world, an unknown phenomenon bringing back the dead. It was an exact contradiction of itself - the living dead.</p><p>They were living the Walking Dead, and she’d never seen it so she was a walking target. She pieced together the head shot pretty quickly after remembering what little remorse the security guard had for what she had thought was a patient. But even then her hands had shaken to think about executing anyone even if they were the living dead. It was exactly against her nature, she hadn’t trained to be a paramedic just to go out there and kill everyone who was sick. It was just so wrong.</p><p>She’d kept herself contained to her house for as long as she could bear it. But even then she hadn’t managed to get in contact with anyone she knew. Complete radio silence, people were frenzied on the streets trying to get out of Chicago before it caught up to them. She should have done that but she didn’t want to face this with her parents, as much as she loved them she didn’t trust her ability to stay alive with them. It was sick but she wanted to stay alive, even if that meant staying away from her parents.</p><p>She looked over her shoulder as she hopped over a dumpster that had been pushed out to block an alley. None of the dead and none of the living had seen her. That had been her goal.</p><p>Continuing her hurried walk she finally felt her heart palpitations subside as she spotted it. Her trusty ambulance.</p><p>It had been a complete miracle that they’d come upon her. She’d been trying to source at least some bandaids from a local pharmacy all the while trying to escape the clawing hands of the dead that wanted a bit of her.</p><p>Her heart had been in her throat as she attempted to get them off of her by using a bit of broken metal that didn’t really extend her reach much. She’d jumped out of the smashed front window of the pharmacy, not making anything better when she’d caught herself on the glass, bleeding out of a gash on her leg. That wouldn’t signal dinner bells at all.</p><p>She didn’t even think they’d been looking for anyone but she’d seen the ambulance. She never clicked that it used to be the one she rode in but it was as safe as any place she had ever seen since this all went down.</p><p>She hadn’t expected a gun to be aimed at her head when she’d tried to open the back doors. She’d choked, hoping they’d be half-decent about someone living trying to break into their ambulance rather than one of the dead trying to eat them.</p><p>She’d met a strangled gasp and a flurry of arms when she’d turned around. Someone bouncing up and down with their arms wrapped around her middle, she would have been confused but she could recognise that hair anywhere.</p><p>Stella Kidd was still gorgeous even if she was dirtied from the streets and many an experience with the dead these past months. Sylvie just couldn’t believe it.</p><p>“H-how?”</p><p>“It’s fate Sylvie Brett! And it isn’t just me.”</p><p>Stella had spun her till she came face to face with her taller partner and by that point, she couldn’t stop the tears. By that point, she’d been sure she was going to die alone just because she couldn’t kill the already dead.</p><p>She wrapped her arms around his middle and delighted in the warmth his chuckle spread through her. She didn’t even care that she didn’t find those bandaids anymore.</p><p>“Brett!”</p><p>She startled out of Peter Mills arms to find Stella staring at the blood pooling down the side of her left leg. She’d forgotten all about the dull thrum of pain as she’d tried to focus wholly on escaping at the dead clawing for their dinner.</p><p>They’d pulled her into the makeshift home they’d made of the ambulance, the stocks of supplies still there but the usual everyday stuff was pretty depleted. She didn’t want to think about the state of some people out there.</p><p>“What did this to you?”</p><p>“Piece of glass.”</p><p>She watched them relax substantially especially after Mills cut the pant leg away from the cut. She didn’t understand the complete vigilance, but then she’d hid away in her house when all of this got out of hand, she had a feeling her braver friends were still out on the frontlines during all of this.</p><p>She tensed up when they cleaned it but felt substantially better once it was bandaged up and hidden away with her now open trouser leg.</p><p>“Have you guys been here since all of this kicked off?”</p><p>Stella shook her head, “Firehouse got run out while we were out on a call, we saw the aftermath it wasn’t good. We chose this alley to hide out, seemed like our best bet. No jobs really exist anymore, you chose the right time to hide out from all of this. No one should have been in work after it all came out, it was a complete bloodbath.”</p><p>Sylvie felt all the blood drain from her face, sure she hadn’t liked many people at Firehouse 34 except for the two in front of her, but she surely didn’t want any of them to die in such a fashion. She hated that she’d evaded it all but was also eternally grateful that she had been too scared to go back to work.</p><p>“What did happen?”</p><p>Her voice was small, it shocked even her. She felt like a small kid, worried about the bogeyman. But this was scarier than that, this was life or death, and it seemed like the dead outnumbered more of the living at this point.</p><p>“Some virus, incurable, there’s the worry that it infects all of us. When you die, everything goes but the urge to eat flesh. Obviously, we don’t know for certain what they are but you kill them in the brain. The only way we stay living while they die. And if they bite you or claw you, the infection spreads while you’re living and it will kill you and you become like them. It’s a fight to survive.”</p><p>Sylvie nodded, “that sounds about right, we survive but it isn’t really living is it?”</p><p>Stella nodded grimly, it wasn’t the first any of them had thought about it. But at least they had one another. An hour ago all Sylvie had was herself and a cut that was going to get infected, now she had two of her closest friends and some semblance that they would survive all of this, they would just have to try and live in the meantime.</p><p>Talking about living as she stared at her ambulance, they’d covered it as best as they could over the three weeks she had been with them. She worried they’d become complacent, they’d found a significantly empty spot from the dead but that didn’t bode well for her, they were sitting ducks, they’d blocked the back entrance with a dumpster and you couldn’t get out the front way for a gate.</p><p>She hadn’t been with them when they chose this spot or she might have suggested somewhere with an exit strategy but she was just thankful that they had let her stay with them after finding her that day, she didn’t want to push her luck by proving something like that. So they stayed, and every time she went out on a supply run she was reminded of the mistake they had made leaving it there, the mistake she had made not voicing her opinion when she first noted it. She feared her time to argue the placement of the ambo had long since passed, but she kept a bag of extra supplies hidden by the dumpster just in case anyway. It looked like trash so no one was about to go looking there unless they were really in need of it, of which case they were needier than she and she could always put together another.</p><p>She wanted to make sure she always had an escape plan just in case something went wrong. She was permanently terrified and she thought that was adding to her will to live. No one could kill her if she was vigilant if she was always thinking two steps ahead maybe she would survive this.</p><p>She hadn’t voiced any of her concerns with the others, they just seemed so comforted by the safety of the ambulance, a safety she hadn’t felt since she had watched that security guard shoot the dead. She hadn’t been okay since then, but she’d had three weeks of isolation to build up that paranoia when they had been working, they didn’t deserve to be plunged into the hell of paranoia she fought with daily. At least not yet.</p><p>She knocked twice on the back doors and grinned as Stella welcomed her back in, she set her bag down on the floor and accepted the shitty coffee that had been brewing when she had left that morning.</p><p>She looked out of the back window and swore that it was more dangerous being barely able to see out. She felt like a trapped animal every time she entered here now, it was hardly the safest place they could find to hide out, but she needed to stop worrying about that for now.</p><p>Worrying wasn’t living.</p><p>“What did you see out there?”</p><p>“Nothing much, few of the dead a couple of blocks from here, but nothing close enough to be a problem.”</p><p>Stella’s breath of relief was enough to prevent her from voicing her worries, they would need to be addressed eventually, now just wasn’t a good time.</p><p>“Where’s Mills?”</p><p>“Said he wanted to go have a look around, I’ve been holding down the fort.”</p><p>Sylvie felt her heart palpitations rise, Peter Mills hadn’t left this ambulance without one of them since she had been with them, mostly because he didn’t think this was all as bad as it was. Her worries heightened and she didn’t bother smothering them this time.</p><p>“We need to go look for him.”</p><p>Stella baulked at her, she hadn’t ventured past the dumpster ever, at least for as long as Sylvie had been there.</p><p>“He’s going to be alright, Brett, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Just because I downplay it for the sake of my paranoia doesn’t mean he’s going to be okay out there. I trust him, just there is so much that could go wrong.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>Oh boy.</p><p>“Well for one, you left us trapped here. Whoever parked this ambulance picked a great spot for privacy and we probably won’t get robbed but if the dead get in at that end we have nowhere to go and we’re trapped. We don’t have good sightlines out of the back of the ambo to see if anyone is sneaking up on us, the most weapons we’re carrying is a couple of kitchen knives and a gun with a couple of bullets that I guess he’s probably taken with him.”</p><p>Stella nodded grimly, the reality of the situation hitting her hard. They’d tried pretending that they weren’t living in the apocalypse but Sylvie hadn’t been that lucky, the only one willing to leave the ambulance. Considering when she had arrived with them she didn’t even want to kill them, she had probably the highest kill rate of all three of them. She wasn’t proud of it but she lived to worry another day so at least there was that.</p><p>“What do you suggest?”</p><p>“How much gas does this have?”</p><p>“Probably a full tank, at least more than half. You know we don’t like to attend runs with less than half.”</p><p>Sylvie nodded, as much as she wanted to remember that she’d practically lost all of the small bits of her memory that might have been useful if she still counted as a paramedic.</p><p>“Alright, I’m going to go move the dumpster and then you’re going to back it out, then we’re going to go looking for Mills.”</p><p>Stella nodded.</p><p>Sylvie worried as she shoved the grotty dumpster out of the alley and onto the street, far enough away that she wouldn’t have to worry about Stella manoeuvring the ambo around it. What if they missed Peter Mills, what if he came back to this alley while they were looking for him. She should have been able to keep her worries inside for one more hour so he could come back. Now they were acting and maybe she and Stella would live, but maybe Peter Mills would die and even more blood would be on her hands.</p><p>That was one worry she’d keep out of Stella’s head no one needed that. She’d already thought it, there was no getting away from it now. She just had to make herself believe that this was the right move, she was saving two people even if she was sentencing another to death. She just had to believe it even if she didn’t want to.</p><p>Stella was backing the ambo up when she heard yelling and her blood ran cold. A bloody Peter Mills being held up by two strangers running at them, yelling unintelligible things her way.</p><p>Unintelligible things she didn’t understand until they got within a foot of her, but by that point, she could see them. A hoard, there was no escaping them now. She felt the ambo bump her and she stumbled, she slammed the back doors until she managed to get them open and the four of them piled into the back.</p><p>“Stella drive! Go right!”</p><p>She was focused on Peter Mills as he bled into the sleeping bags they had laid on the floor. The two others were panting but seemed otherwise healthy. She peeled his shirt off of him and smiled in thanks as the other woman leant down to help steady him as Kidd sped away from the hoard. Knowing the Chicago streets as an ambulance driver was as good as having a taxi driver on your apocalypse team, Stella was driving them as fast and as safely as she could to the emptiest place she could think of.</p><p>She swallowed harshly as she found the bite on his shoulder. She knew what that meant, his time was limited, there was no way they could save him from this, she might have been a talented paramedic but she was no miracle worker and this needed at least Jesus to save him at this point.</p><p>The other woman swore as they stared at the bite, there was nothing they could do for him now.</p><p>“I should have known when we found him.”</p><p>Sylvie’s throat was dry, she couldn’t believe this was going to happen to Peter Mills of all people.</p><p>“Where did you find him?”</p><p>“He was propped up by a dumpster. Gun in hand, looked like he was gonna kill himself, said there were people who could help round the corner. I guess that was the two of you.”</p><p>Sylvie nodded, “we’re friends.”</p><p>“I’m sorry about your friend. I’m Emily Foster, that’s Kyle Sheffield.”</p><p>“Sylvie Brett, he’s Peter Mills. Stella Kidd is driving.”</p><p>It felt wrong to introduce themselves to one another while one of them was dying on the floor between them, but she had a feeling that this was about to become their new normal, she just didn’t want it to be one of her friends first.</p><p>Stella eventually stopped driving and returned to the back to find them still staring at the elephant in the room, the bite on his shoulder.</p><p>Sylvie jumped out of the ambo to wrap her up into a hug.</p><p>“I should never have let him out alone.”</p><p>“Not your fault Stella, he would have gone out even if you hadn’t let him. Mills was a big boy.”</p><p>“I know - it’s just - it’s Mills.”</p><p>“I know. But we can still make him comfortable, his last few hours before he turns doesn’t have to be painful. We have enough morphine to give him enough of a high to send him off peacefully. Then we have to - you know.”</p><p>Stella sobbed but she knew what she meant, they had to stop the turn before it happened. Peter Mills would never forgive them if they allowed him to turn into one of those mindless beings for the rest of his life.</p><p>“We make him comfortable.”</p><p>Sylvie squeezed her arm and turned back to the others in the ambo, Emily nodded, “we can help you if you’d like?”</p><p>Sylvie smiled briefly, she was just glad the two strangers were decent enough people. If they were pretending she’d hate herself later but right now she was going to be naive into thinking they wanted to help send her friend away peacefully.</p><p>They all copped together and brought him to rest his back against a tree, he was wrapped in the bloody sleeping bag he’d fallen onto on the ambulance. He was still out of it, and Sylvie could bet with all her medical expertise that he was out cold with the pain, it wasn’t the only bite he had sustained, the tear in his pant leg told her at least that there was one other.</p><p>If she could relieve some of his pain with a quick shot of morphine to send him away with at least peaceful memories that were exactly what she would do.</p><p>Stella handed her the needle already prepared, her tearstained cheeks matching Sylvie’s but she wasn’t going to stop her grief stop her here.</p><p>She felt some reprieve at the peaceful look on his otherwise hard face, she had to stop herself sobbing all over again. She’d known he was going to die leaving Stella alone in the ambulance earlier that day, but she didn’t feel happier knowing only one of them was dead. She wished all three of them had survived all of this. She wanted to live with them.</p><p>Stella kept her fingers on his pulse point on his wrist until it faded to a stop. Now was the worst point.</p><p>She fingered the knife she held, knowing as soon as she did this she’d never be able to use it ever again. She breathed slowly until she cleared her mind and then plunged it into the side of his head behind his ear, it was quick, and it wasn’t too messy but she still felt unclean and she figured she always would. She nearly threw up at his blood on the knife, but she dropped it into the grass next to him anyway and stumbled away.</p><p>Stella picked it up and fingered it until she used it to pin a piece of paper to the tree above his head.</p><p>
  <em>‘Peter Mills, Firefighter, Paramedic, Hero.’</em>
</p><p>The tombstone he deserved, written in marker on the back of a faded Chinese restaurant menu.</p><p>She squeezed Stella close to her as they looked at Mills, dead where they left him, still human. They had caught him long before he turned into something that wasn’t him. He deserved that much.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Hank Voight.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Hank Voight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world had gone crazy in a matter of days, they had been prepared for it to the best of their ability but it wasn’t the type of crazy they had expected the world to fall to. The Police were swamped, calls about the dead coming back to life, for the first time the number of gangbangers that fell to overdose were suddenly reawakening and killing their own. But they were unequipped to fight the dead, the dead were supposed to stay dead at least that was the way Voight knew the rules of the world.</p><p>He’d strived to keep his unit together, the intelligence unit losing its wind as all cases revolved around the dead. They weren’t needed, they were just there now. Platt had been unsuccessful at keeping her officers morale up enough for them to stick around, the 21st district became a ghost town as people flocked to keeping their families safe.</p><p>Despite his stoic appearance Voight was beginning to fear for the safety of his people. Julie Wilhite took her children and husband out of the city first chance they got and he didn’t have the authority to beg her to stay.</p><p>Atwater gave in next, he had to make sure his siblings were safe but he promised to make it back to the station if he could. They never saw him again. Burgess went with him and then she was gone.</p><p>All of the people he considered closest to him he almost had to beg to stay. Al was keen on getting his family to the station just as Voight had squirrelled his son Justin inside, he had instructed Erin to keep a tight eye on him. Antonio had made a break for it, his wife had taken the kids outside of the city and him and his paramedic sister had gone to find them.</p><p>The district seemed huge for the few of them that remained, but it was a stronghold if they ever had one, Lexi and Meredith were scared about it all but no one wanted to die so they were just going to stick with it.</p><p>Justin had believed he could do it all by himself until one of the zombies had tried to take a chunk out of his arm not before Erin had blown a hole through its brain. From then on he’d wanted a gun but Voight wasn’t that stupid, even if the end of the world had come he wasn’t about to trust his son with a gun. He was still police even if the structure didn’t remain.</p><p>He sat at his desk in what was still his office and looked out of the window, they were stumbling around one another, they just looked as if they had multiplied overnight. With such a big city as Chicago, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were multiplying exponentially, at this point they were only preventing the inevitable. He was willing to prevent it as long as it took, he hadn’t had enough of life yet.</p><p>They’d been contained to the station for long enough that everyone was beginning to become stir crazy, only Al and he had been out for supply runs, only he and Al had seen the real inhumanity of the outside world. He did not want to subject anyone to that if he didn’t have to. He just wished he could have kept the others inside while he still had the chance.</p><p>“Hank!”</p><p>Erin’s shout had him tensing up and reaching for his gun within seconds, he rushed to the doorway to find her gesturing to something outside of the window. He approached with haste and relaxed at what he saw, for some reason he thought the zombies had learnt how to breach fortified buildings.</p><p>The alternative wasn’t reassuring, though at least they knew other humans still lived in this unearthly existence.</p><p>Two men were rushing through the swarms, a bundle wrapped up in the taller mans as two women followed behind them. They were stabbing each zombie that got close enough in the head and they were falling away from them, dead.</p><p>He watched them disappear around the corner as unharmed as they could be fighting through those bastards downstairs.</p><p>“It’s good to see others have survived this.”</p><p>“We could help them? Who knows where they’re holding up or if they’re going to survive this?”</p><p>Hank shook his head, “they looked like they can handle themselves, we would only be sacrificing ourselves at this point.”</p><p>Erin frowned at him but didn’t fight it, to know that others existed beyond their brick fortress was reassuring but they still didn’t know the good from the bad survivors. Humans were still humans whether there were zombies on the streets or not.</p><p>“So we aren’t going to help anyone? Are we just going to stay in here forever?”</p><p>Hank shrugged his shoulders, truthfully he didn’t know much more than anyone else. He had to be strong to convince them that they would be okay even if he really didn’t know. Their supplies were getting low and every time he and Al left the safety of the station they were finding less and less resources. He knew that meant there were more survivors, but with his experience of the people of Chicago he could guess not all of them would be amenable to sharing some of their loot. The time would come when they would all need to leave the station but that time had not come yet.</p><p>He squeezed Trudy’s shoulder where she was reading with Lexi and proceeded to head downstairs to where he knew Al and Meredith would be arguing as was their usual daily habit by this point.</p><p>He bypassed them quickly looking for his son, he worried about all this for Justin, trading out one prison sentence for this, it wasn’t the best option at all but its what they had to do to survive. He knocked once on the room Justin had taken up when they had moved up.</p><p>Justin grunted but it wasn’t an outright fuck off so he would take it.</p><p>“You saw the people outside?”</p><p>Voight hadn’t expected him to speak but he nodded affirmatively, “I did.”</p><p>“I told you we could survive past these walls.”</p><p>“I’m sure we could, but it is safer for everyone to just stay here.”</p><p>“Safer until when? Until we run out of food? That's any day now right?”</p><p>Voight was worried by the tone in his voice but he knew he hated this, everyone hated this. Seeing people on the outside as worried as they had looked he knew it meant something for everyone, it wasn’t just them for one.</p><p>“We’ve got supplies for at least another week, Al and I are heading out tomorrow to have another look before it comes to that. And when it does we will address it then, for now, we stay safe and we stay inside.”</p><p>Justin grunted again and he took it as his cue to leave, he was slowly reaching breaking planet with him, this was just another bit of trouble he didn’t want to focus on just yet. He had never been one to push his problems away from him but it seemed like the only solution at this point, the only valuable solution anyway.</p><p>Al shook his head at him where he was stood by Trudy’s old sergeants' desk. Everyone was beginning to become fed up with their life here, Hank was too if he was honest, but knowing that this might be their last safe home had him enough that he didn’t want to leave until their last opportunity.</p><p>“Even if we find supplies on a run tomorrow, Hank, we won’t be able to stay here longer than a month. It might be high time we start looking for somewhere else that’s safe, somewhere that’s closer to supplies. This place is a fortress but everywhere near here has been looted. This isn’t a life.”</p><p>“I’m well aware, I just want to hold onto this safe place as long as possible before we go giving it over to the dead.”</p><p>“I know, Hank. Let’s at least still go out for supplies tomorrow and we can do a quick canvas in the meantime.”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan.”</p>
<hr/><p>They left at dawn the next day, the quietest time but also when most of the dead had wandered off elsewhere. They knew the routes like the back of their hand, back to their patrol days when both men were younger. These were their streets and they weren’t about to hand them over to the dead, at least not with one hell of a fight.</p><p>The hiking backpacks they wore had never returned with them full like they wanted them to be, but with at least an even distribution between the two of them so they could run without one lagging behind the other.</p><p>They had the situation down to a science by now, this was their turf, they just had to get a mile or so through winding streets to reach where they knew some of the lesser-known food markets lay. They’d had to go further and further afield every time they left since the first time, people including them had raided the closest ones almost straight away. Especially, everyone who had fled the city, they’d at least taken a month's worth of supplies out with them.</p><p>They avoided the dead as best they could but shot the ones they couldn’t get past. Silencers muffled the shot as well as they could but they always tended to draw the dead closer nevertheless.</p><p>Al slipped inside the first shop and Hank into the one several buildings down. Both men had never considered that having the two of them together was the safest option. He would never question it again.</p><p>He’d been clearing shelves he thought he’d hit the jackpot when he’d felt a hand on his shoulder, he wouldn’t have been quick enough, he would have been dead and one of those…things.</p><p>He would have been, if not for the man wielding the knife that sunk into the side of its head, halting its process and as he pulled his knife out the thing sunk to the ground, dead and harmless.</p><p>The man nodded grimly, his face covered in a mess of a beard and lots of blood. Hank felt the urge to arrest this man but if he had any bad intent he would have just let him get eaten by the bastard he just put down.</p><p>The man didn’t stick around much, he’d clearly already been in the store Hank was in the midst of clearing out, his backpack and subsequent bags weighing him down substantially.</p><p>“Just so you know, guns are the worst idea here. They always hear it, you want to stab them, quieter.”</p><p>He barely made it two steps outside of the shop after his advice before Al was pressing him against the glass a gun to the side of his head.</p><p>The man swore, “there’s two of you? You’ve got to be achingly stupid. No guns and don’t split up, the best way not to get dead. Can you get off of me?”</p><p>The man was mouthy and it quirked at Al’s lips. Hank could tell his old friend appreciated the snark.</p><p>He let go of him and holstered the gun, the man’s eyes followed the movement and rolled his eyes, “you guys are cops? God you know that isn’t a thing anymore right? Not that I don’t have a grudge and all.”</p><p>He muttered the last bit to himself as he rubbed his face with an equally grotty hand.</p><p>Al chuffed, “why would you have a grudge?”</p><p>“I was a week away from graduating from the police academy when all this kicked off.”</p><p>Hank knew as much as he’d wanted to arrest him for his appearance when they first met that this man had the interests of people in mind. Or else he never would have killed the thing before it made off with his brain.</p><p>“Where are you living, kid?”</p><p>The man quirked his eyebrow at him, looked at their bags before shrugging. “Wherever I can find at the minute. Why?”</p><p>“You seem good people. We have a place about ten blocks from here.”</p><p>The man nodded, he wasn’t opposed to joining some men, knowing they were all supposed to be coworkers at one point helped.</p><p>“I’m Adam, Adam Ruzek.”</p><p>“Al Olinsky, Hank Voight.”</p><p>Adam grinned, “I suppose you’re stocking up on supplies before you go back? Did you know they keep crates of stock in the basement of these places? People always forget that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Connor Rhodes.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Connor Rhodes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Connor trekked down the side of the freeway, he was blocked from the cold wind by the tree cover but he was out in the open for any of the dead to find him. He was too tired to even think about trying to stay vigilant, he just needed to find somewhere safe so he could sleep. It had been a long week. </p><p>His head ached and he was fighting to keep his eyes open, to concentrate on the looming figure of Chicago ahead of him. His bag was heavy on his back, straps digging grooves into his shoulders but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Adrenaline had long since worn off. </p><p>His entire being was splattered with blood, blood of both the living and the dead. He would never be able to forget it, not even if he tried really hard. Whatever had happened these past months didn’t cause what he had seen, that incident was caused by a very sick individual, and he had welcomed them into their lives. He would never be so naive to think that people could be trusted straight away ever again. </p><p>He’d been with his family as much as they abhorred him. He’d come back from work abroad to find something back in Chicago, he’d missed the city, he hadn’t so much missed his family. But he was there when all of this kicked off, he hadn’t intended to stick around but he couldn’t just leave them when all of this had gone to shit. </p><p>He rubbed at a stray tear as he continued his trek back into Chicago, he hated to think back on it but he couldn’t get it out of his mind. If anything it was the only thing on his mind. </p><p>Cornelius’ plan had been to get them out of the city, get them to one of the houses he owned out of the city, where they could be safe and there was always a pantry stocked with food. Connor hadn’t opposed the idea, he’d been glad his dad had remained so level headed while everything was happening, especially while Claire hyperventilated in the corner. </p><p>If anything he was glad to know they were with one another for this, he couldn’t imagine worrying about them from hundreds of miles away, the weather would have been nicer but he for sure wasn’t wishing for good weather over knowing his family was safe. </p><p>He’d helped them pack what they wanted into the car and considering his dad always had a driver he sat behind the wheel. For the first time, he had felt like he was needed by his family, it had to be the end of the world for that to happen but he felt needed nevertheless. </p><p>They’d managed to evade most of the infected but they hadn’t expected the highway to be so packed full of slow-moving cars. He’d backtracked almost immediately and chosen a different way out of the city. That had been one mistake if he had just continued the convenient way he wouldn’t be where he is now. </p><p>He looked ahead of him and could see the high rises of the buildings, it was closer at least. He was close, he was exhausted but he was close, and then he could just find somewhere to rest his head and be done with it. He wished he’d never come back from abroad, then he never would have known. He had thought knowing they were safe was a good enough reason to justify staying with them, but not even he had the ability to protect them. None of them were killers, even killers of the infected. </p><p>Connor worried that he would never be able to kill them, he was a doctor, he didn’t count it in his job title to kill them. What about the oath he swore to do no harm? These people were sick and maybe it was incurable but he surely couldn’t just kill them so openly. It seemed so wrong. </p><p>It hadn’t taken a whole lot of time before Cornelius and Claire were fast asleep in the car next to him, if they had been awake maybe they would have had a different opinion on what he’d felt was right. </p><p>What was right being pulling over when you see someone flagging you down off of a dead-end road. They’d only reached twenty minutes outside of Chicago and Connor’s guard was down. She looked harmless but that was another mistake. No one was harmless in this post-apocalyptic world, he knew that now. </p><p>He rolled down his window and parked beside her, “are you alright?”</p><p>“My group got overrun, I barely managed to escape myself.”</p><p>“We have room if you don’t mind leaving Chicago?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”</p><p>He shook his head, “not at all, they’re asleep just hop in. I’m Connor.”</p><p>“Ava.”</p><p>Ava. Of course, her name was Ava, no psycho was ever named something sinister like Lilith. She looked friendly enough too, her eyes sincere not like you couldn’t put that on. </p><p>She had an accent too but he couldn’t place it, he didn’t want to place it, if he did he would be forever marking them up to his experience with her and maybe he needed to because he should have seen it. He should have cared enough not to let a complete stranger in the back of his car with his sleeping sister. That should have been a no brainer but he did it anyways. </p><p>He’d gotten them another ten minutes down the road, bits of conversation shared between them. He liked her, he hadn’t met someone he got along with so quickly in a long time. </p><p>She was simple, she too a surgeon that had transferred over from a practice abroad, he couldn’t remember where he wasn’t really listening. It was just mindless chatter, something to fill the void and tension of driving a car with two people that he hadn’t spoken to before all this kicked off in five years. She made it all lighter. He liked her. </p><p>It had been about then that he felt the first splatter hit him. It had confused him enough to look down and be horrified at the blood that covered his arm. Glancing back made him swerve the car which woke his father. </p><p>Ava had slit his sister’s throat, Claire had been asleep and never saw it coming, but Cornelius got a long hard look at the blade that took him out before she slashed deep and ending. His dad had stared at him horrified when he’d died.</p><p>The car had hit a tree then, Connor’s face hit the steering wheel, but he hadn’t been looking forwards and the angle at which it hit sent pain radiating down the left side of his face. Blood trickled towards his eye, sticking to his eyelashes and closing his eye. </p><p>Ava had been sent into the back headrest, immobilising her for seconds, her grip on the knife that had been swinging towards him next never loosened. </p><p>It was seconds enough for Connor to scramble out of the car and away from the blade that would take his life next. He fought to find something to keep her away from him, but his vision was blurring and he knew from experience he had a concussion, none of this was going to go well for him now. He’d let her into his car and she had killed his family not ten minutes into being welcomed into the car. He worried what that meant for the group she had mentioned being in before this car. He felt sick. </p><p>He scrambled backwards, his hands clawing at the flat ground until his fingers located something solid. Something solid and jagged, and as much as he was scared he was running on adrenaline, and for the first time he understood self-defence charges. </p><p>She lunged at him and he smacked her around the head with a large rock. She rolled off of him and he scrambled to his feet, adrenaline pumping, as much as he knew she was a threat he couldn’t think of anything worse than killing her, then he was no different than what she had done to his family. </p><p>He took the knife she had used to cut open his father and sister, and tugged his backpack out of the car. He took one last look at his dead relatives and took off back towards the city. </p><p>He loped as best he could until the car was a thing of the past, he hid in the trees so she couldn’t find him even if she came searching for him. He would get lost in the city after that, he didn’t suspect she would come looking for him, but she was a psycho killer, you couldn’t apply logic to them. </p><p>Though he would never forgive himself for not fixing it right there and then. She’d done it to him, she’d purposefully flagged them down to kill them, she was a serial killer and none of them had done anything against her, they were just trying to get out of the city and away from the madness. They had only driven towards it and he had let it into his car. He would never be so naive ever again. </p><p>He didn’t get along well with his father or sister but he would have never wished them dead. </p><p>His head throbbed as he walked, he was tired and he wanted to sleep but with a concussion and the dead he didn’t think all of this was going to go too well if he just curled down for a nap. He just had to get another mile or so into the city, find an empty house that was safe enough not to let the dead find him and then he could rest. </p><p>He dragged himself into the city, he could see the dead ahead of him, blurry at best with concussion and blood coming down the side of his head. The city seemed a whole hell of a lot bigger when trying to find somewhere safe to lie down and rest. Especially not having lived there for five years, he didn’t even know where to start to look. </p><p>The place was scary quiet, he knew sound drew them to you but it seemed so wrong. He needed the hustle and bustle to feel safe, he wanted his father and his sister but one mistake of his and they were gone. He would never get to speak to them again. That was his fault and it would never not be his fault. </p><p>He pushed at doors and found them locked, there wasn’t much further he could get without passing out in the street and that was going to be a sure-fire way for him to see his parents and sister again, so long as heaven really did exist. He didn’t know if he had ever believed in religion but now seemed as good a time as any to start. </p><p>He prayed as he pushed at each door trying not to cause too much noise, he didn’t think he would survive if he accidentally drew them to him. He could feel his energy lagging, he was moments away from tumbling into a sleep he would never wake from. Maybe then he would find out if heaven truly did exist. </p><p>If heaven did exist it didn’t matter in that moment as the door swung open and he tumbled in. He briefly stopped his face connecting with a concrete step and he pulled himself to his feet all wobbly. He pushed the door shut and tried to shove something behind it to stop any of the dead following him in. He didn’t know if they were that smart, but he wasn’t about to risk it. Not a chance. </p><p>He stumbled up the stairs, hands holding most of his weight against grotty stairs as his legs failed to cooperate. He wasn’t sure if this was an office building or an apartment building, all he knew was that door was open and there didn’t seem to be any dead inside. He closed the door and fell to the floor. He tried to crawl away from the door but found himself dead to the world within seconds. He was too tired to deal with any of this now. If the dead found him - they found him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Matthew Casey.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Matthew Casey</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The firehouse had been one of the first things to fall when world civilisation fell to its knees. Looting and rioting and more fires than they had the ability to deal with, the brass forbid them from trying to fix every fire. It was against their nature to leave people to suffer especially if they had the opportunity to fix it. Firefighters turned up less and less to shifts, after a while, it didn’t seem as if they truly even had a job.</p><p>It was just a building filled with the ghosts of the past and people who didn’t have anywhere else to go. They welcomed in members of the community as best they could handle, they camped out on the app floor, they took their beds and contributed to the food stores. It was the best they could do now that they were no longer serving them putting out fires.</p><p>Matt spent a lot of his time on the roof of the house, he couldn’t believe how quickly Chicago had fallen to this affliction. People had fled, people had died, people had come together. He’d lost contact with his sister and Violet right at the very start, they’d been out of Chicago when all this went down and there was no realistic endpoint where he would find them even if he did search the highs and lows. Worst case scenario, that really was his only thought was that they were stumbling out among the masses somewhere where he hadn’t been able to protect them.</p><p>If he couldn’t protect his family, maybe he could keep his firehouse safe. Most of his truck crew had fled for their homes and families, not completely sure they would be safe crammed into the firehouse with everyone else. He didn’t blame them for thinking of their safety first, he surely would have done the same if the firehouse wasn’t already his family.</p><p>He’d been anxious about his decision to stay put until his long time best friend told him that it was his thought too. So at least he wasn’t alone, Boden had brought his wife Donna to the house before everything went to shambles, and then there was Severide and Shay. He couldn’t think of anyone better to be fighting against this with.</p><p>The many people crammed inside thought differently, they fought tiresomely to convince them that leaving wasn’t their best idea though they couldn’t keep them there themselves, it had to be their choice. They’d lost a couple of families those first few weeks, though with promises of coming back that never got fulfilled few people followed in their footsteps.</p><p>Everyone was scared, including Matt. He feared what would come of the future, they couldn’t hide in the firehouse forever, that wasn’t a plan. No one wanted to voice that opinion out loud, it was too real in a situation that they wanted to pretend wasn’t happening.</p><p>Matt feared for the future, he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel with this one, this was just too much for one person to find the end in. They’d fixed one problem, and now a million others were piling up on top of them. There was no way they would get out of them very easily.</p><p>“What’s got you in your head this time, Case?”</p><p>Matt jumped as Severide appeared next to him, “just the world, the future, worries.”</p><p>“Deep. I get it, everyone is scared down there. Lights are failing again, not sure we have enough juice to keep them on much longer.”</p><p>“I don’t think we can stay here if we’re going to just hide inside like this will all end soon. This isn’t going to end, Sev. This is just the beginning.”</p><p>Severide nodded glumly, perching next to him on the roof, “Shay’s still treating those old folks in the bunk room. She isn’t positive about their chances.”</p><p>Matt frowned, there was nothing truly good about this whole situation and now they were trapped in this concrete house.</p><p>“I think we need to start preparing like we’re going to stay here long term. Fences out front, supply runs, train some more people up in medicine. We have a lot of scared people down there that might not be so scared if we’re keeping them busy.”</p><p>Severide nodded, “you’ve been thinking about this a lot?”</p><p>Matt nodded, he didn’t take his eyes off of the dead stumbling around, “I don’t want to see them win.”</p><p>Severide clapped him on the shoulder, “let’s go speak to Boden, maybe there’s something we can do about that today.”</p><hr/><p>Boden was with Donna in his office when they found him. The two officers apologising as they interrupted. Severide nudged Casey with his elbow urging him to speak.</p><p>“I want to put a fence around the perimeter, secure this place further if we’re planning on staying here for the future.”</p><p>Boden nodded, his face hadn’t left the stoic Boden they knew him as chief for such a long time.</p><p>He rubbed at his stubble and gestured for them to close the door, Severide shared a worried look with Casey but they complied anyways.</p><p>“Donna is pregnant.”</p><p>Matt felt all of the blood drain out of his face, the miracle of childbirth was not something he had thought they would be dealing with for another couple of years in the current climate.</p><p>Severide recovered quicker than him, “Congratulations.”</p><p>Matt nodded in solidarity but the couple didn’t seem too perturbed by his constant worrying.</p><p>Boden smiled, it was conflicted and broken but he smiled nevertheless, “This isn’t the way we wanted to tell anyone, and there is little we can do about it now. I’ve been worried about our situation as well, your idea to fortify the house has come at a good time, we are running out of supplies.”</p><p>The air was tense inside the office, they knew this would come eventually, but no one had wanted it to come so soon, especially such as news like this.</p><p>Matt scratched at the back of his head, “we need supply runs, Shay needs to train people up medically even if just the basics, we need a fence and we need to convince these people to help us.”</p><p>Boden watched as he paced, all of his fears come to reality, but Matt seemed to at least have some clue about how this would all go. He knew his Captain could do this.</p><p>“You should run point on this, Casey. You and Severide do what you need to, I’ll try and convince people to get involved. I don’t want anyone else going out on supply runs though, I trust the two of you.”</p><p>Severide nodded sharply, “understood Chief.”</p><hr/><p>Severide grabbed him by the arms to stop his pacing but it did little to quell the worry he could see clouding his eyes. He needed Captain Casey right now, level headed Captain Casey who could command everyone at a fire scene, his worrying little brother was no use to them right now.</p><p>“Casey! Put on your Captain head! Breathe!”</p><p>Severide watched as he struggled to keep himself straight, he breathed slowly until he stood up straight and nodded.</p><p>“Sorry.”</p><p>“No need, we just have too much work to do. Meet me out front in ten minutes I just need to speak to Shay.”</p><p>Matt nodded, moving methodically and purposeful through the firehouse, over peoples legs and out of the front door.</p><p>The dead littered the drive into the firehouse, but none were close enough to cause a sufficient problem. They had swarmed them once but they’d managed to control that after some time. Keeping quiet helped, killing them didn’t.</p><p>This world was so different than the world he had lived in just two months ago.</p><p>Severide threw his turnout gear at him, set a halogen down at his feet and dropped the two backpacks he was holding.</p><p>“We’re going for supplies, if fires can’t get through our gear neither will those fuckers. We’ll still have to be careful but this should help. We need to look for anything we can block up the front with while we’re out there.”</p><p>Matt sucked in a breath and nodded, “We kill them only if we have to.”</p><p>They were in agreement on that, no one wanted to put anything down if they didn’t have to, this was just another one of those circumstances. The thought of pressing out into the unknown after months in safety was just enough to curl his toes. He didn’t want his crazy ideas to be the reason he got Severide killed, he wouldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t let that happen. For his sanity.</p><p>They walked with a purpose, barely an arms width between them to make sure they didn’t lose one another in the crowds. They stuck to the sides, as best they could, out of the way.</p><p>Matt pushed at his shoulder and pointed ahead of them. A construction site, he was sure he could find whatever they needed somewhere like that, he even had his tools at the firehouse, his contractor heart beating for this.</p><p>Severide nodded, but they pushed on, they weren’t here to drag back fortifications, they would have to recruit others for that, they needed food, medical supplies, something to keep the kids busy and blankets. Everything they were sure must already have been looted. They had to keep their hopes up as they walked.</p><p>They knew these streets like the backs of their hands, but it all seemed so warped now. Quiet and bloody, abandoned items littering the streets. This was not their home.</p><p>Severide swung his halogen into one of the fuckers that got close to him. Matt spluttered as its guts painted his face. He hadn’t expected such an explosive reaction, but he wasn’t as shocked when it happened a second time.</p><p>The metal tool was heavy in tired hands, but they swung them nevertheless, bodies limp trailed behind them as they continued their hunt for supplies. They took shelter in a local grocery store, pressing the door shut with bodyweight afterwards.</p><p>Severide swept as much stuff into the first backpack as he could find, it was all dried fruits but it was the best he could find. A couple of boxes of plasters and a few pairs of prescription glasses. He didn’t know how they would help but it was better than nothing. Matt panted as he kept the door blocked shut.</p><p>There were sounds outside as they turned to fight their way out. They stood shocked and worried until the hoard that had followed them towards the shop fell away leaving two bloody men that they couldn’t help but recognise.</p><p>Severide dropped his halogen as he flew forwards, everyone was so sure the two men were dead. They didn’t even seem injured just exhausted and incredibly bloody.</p><p>“We heard you killing these from across the street. Every time we tried to make it back to the house the hoards would hear us. Capp can’t walk light-footed even if he tried.”</p><p>Capp frowned at Tony but the smaller man paid no mind.</p><p>Matt laughed, he couldn’t believe Capp and Tony had survived out here after so long. It was almost as if humans were fated to battle against the dead and win. Some of his worries disappeared, if their friends could get through two weeks out in the cold on their own, the community they had amassed at the firehouse could surely get on just as well.</p><p>“I can’t believe the two of you survived out here.”</p><p>Capp shook his head at Severide, “Come on lieutenant you know us.”</p><p>Tony laughed, “yeah that’s why he thought we’d die.”</p><p>Capp frowned, “I don’t understand.”</p><p>Matt barked out a laugh, he couldn’t believe they were stood here all laughing at Capp like this was any other die. He was glad to see at least some light had prevailed in all of this darkness.</p><p>Severide clapped him on the shoulder in good humour, “Seen as you seem to be the experts in surviving out here, do you know any good places to find supplies?”</p><p>Tony nodded, “We picked up most of the good stuff when we first got stuck out here. I’ll show you.”</p><p>The apartment Tony and Capp had been holed up in had two sleeping bags on the floor and a safe placed behind the door, he was almost certain they’d been using that to block the front door so now of the dead had been able to reach them. There was a strange pyramid of tins in the corner, Capp had apparently gotten bored while Tony had been trying to look for a route back to the firehouse.</p><p>Matt found trash bags under the sink that he used to hold the duvets he’d pulled out of the bedrooms. Tony filled another with clothes out of the closets, and Capp took charge of placing all the tins in the backpacks.</p><p>Matt felt some relief knowing that their first trip out had brought them reunited with old friends, and a haul worthy of the books. All they had left to think about was fortifying their home. That was a fight for another day by the looks of things, they’d scouted out the construction site at least. They were well on their way to making their own civilisation at the only place he’d ever seen as home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Sharon Goodwin.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Sharon Goodwin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sharon leant her head back against the wall and breathed out, she could feel the blood drying against her hands. That made six patients dead in a matter of hours. Without constant resupplies to the hospital and a lack of remaining staff it was only a matter of time before every vulnerable person was dead in their beds, finished off with a scalpel through the brain to make sure they wouldn’t turn. </p><p>She was the director of patient care, this was not in her job description. It was in none of her doctor's job descriptions yet here they were. As many people as had fled the hospital for their families were laid up in beds wondering why their rooms were bolted shut for fear the epidemic would reach them before their time was up. </p><p>The first couple of cases of the dead coming back had killed all of the morgue technicians, it had taken an age to trap them in rooms or kill them. It had made the situation very real within minutes, some of the best doctors and nurses had fled for their families and she didn’t blame them one bit. </p><p>The hospital was shut down but she remained committed to the few patients that remained in the wards, even if they were all just going to die she wanted them to at least have that chance that they would have if this was all normal. </p><p>It was exhausting to pretend this was all normal, she had to put on a brave face for scared patients and scared staff. She was eternally grateful that her long time family friend Daniel Charles had decided to stick around at the hospital with her. He’d tried to squirrel his families into the hospital too but they’d claimed elsewhere safe and he’d had no leverage to convince them otherwise. </p><p>His oldest daughter Robin already worked in the hospital and had chosen to stick around for this, though she was more than a little bit obsessed with trying to find a cure to this, almost everyone knew that there was no way a cure would be found but no one had the heart to hurt the spirit of the younger Dr Charles. </p><p>Sharon was just lucky the both of them remembered their ED rotation’s no matter how long ago it would have been, even she remembered her nurse training as best she could manage. This was entirely a test that she was sure they would only manage to get a passing grade for, they didn’t have the ability to get a full 100%, not with their resources. </p><p>Then there was Dr Reese or student Dr Reese but none of that mattered anymore anyway, she’d started her ED most recently when all of this fell apart but Earl had found her outside a couple of days after it happened. They’d locked the hospital down and for all intents and purposes, it was just an empty building. Apparently, she’d been considerably concerned about what was happening with the world and fearing for the future and her purpose in it. </p><p>Earl had ignored her orders and brought Sarah Reese inside for a cup of tea to calm her nerves and ask her why she had been seen fretting outside the hospital ever since the hospital had shut down. </p><p>She’d explained that she had moved to Chicago for her medical studies and had no family here to speak of, barely any friends. The hospital really was all she had been here for, it was the only thing important in her life. </p><p>He’d brought her to Sharon after that, and even in the first days of chaos she’d recognised the lost soul that she was and had agreed to let her stay in the hospital with them, she needed the staff nevertheless. </p><p>Reese had been vocal about how much more she had learnt about medicine during the apocalypse than she thought she might ever have learnt in any rotations. Sharon was glad that she worked through it all herself, asked for advice when she needed to, but looked considerably less lost than she had when Earl had first pulled her in off the street. </p><p>Sharon was glad she’d allowed the girl to stay, she had been a great help in this tumultuous time and she never complained. Though Sharon considered maybe she couldn’t considering she had wanted to be involved, there wasn’t any way to think she might be able to get out of it now. But she didn’t seem like she wanted to make a break for it, that was at least good enough for Sharon in any case. </p><p>Earl brought her out of her tired state, a hand on his arm. He was still dressed in his security garb albeit it a bit dirtier than anyone would ever discuss. No one had the spare change of clothes they wanted in a situation like this. </p><p>She smiled at him and tried to shake off some of her exhaustion to address whatever had happened, “what is it?”</p><p>“Looters, I think. I heard someone downstairs, they won’t find much since we moved all the ED stuff upstairs at the start. I was just coming to let you know before I go take a look.”</p><p>“I’ll come with you.”</p><p>Earl tried to shake his head and disagree but he couldn’t refuse her, as much as she was exhausted so was he. He had to patrol the exterior and look out for looters, they couldn’t have violent people getting up to the floors where people still lived. Everyone did more than their job descriptions here but she had known that they would be willing to when she hired everyone here. They were like a family, more so now than before, but even so, she trusted every single one of them with her life and the lives of the patients in their facilities. </p><p>She followed him down the stairs, flinching when she heard the telltale sounds of someone trying to loot their medical supplies that she knew with certainty wouldn’t be there. The most whoever that was would find were used syringes and medical waste that they no longer had the resources to get rid of. Whoever this was, was going to be disappointed shortly, she only hoped they had a chance to chase them away before they found the stairwell and her patients upstairs. </p><p>Earl pushed open the door and placed a hand on his gun at his belt, he hadn’t had to use it just yet and he didn’t want to if he didn’t have to, but he knew at some point he would have to. </p><p>They walked slowly until they found the man - who seemed to be the only looter - sifting through the desk items, bagging pieces of paper that were utterly useless at this point unless he was looking for something in particular. </p><p>He lifted his head and immediately made direct eye contact with Sharon and Earl. He stared for a minute before he lifted his hands, smirked and gestured to the gun on Earl’s hip with a quirk of his hand. </p><p>“I am not a threat officer, don’t shoot.”</p><p>Sharon crossed her arms pointedly, his charm wouldn’t work on her, “then why are you here?”</p><p>“Well, ma’am, I was unaware that this hospital was still in operation. Truthfully I was looking for supplies. I am not a junkie, no ma’am, but a doctor I am.”</p><p>His Louisiana twang told her he was a long way from home but there was no way someone would travel from warm to cold just for the medical supplies, he must have already been in Chicago for some reason. </p><p>“How do we know you are a doctor?”</p><p>“I could redo my medical exams if that will prove to you, but maybe you have my name on records, as I applied for a job here long before this all began. Trauma surgeon Crockett Marcel, ma’am.”</p><p>Sharon could swear that name rang a bell somewhere in her head but she didn’t remember every CV she had ever been handed for a job. She hadn’t hired a new trauma surgeon before this entire mess kicked off but there had been dozens of names on that list. </p><p>“Did you get what you needed from here?”</p><p>“Ah, I got papers for kindling but nothing I expected to find. I suspect you are needing them for the patients upstairs, I would readily join your staff now for a safe place to stay and the chance to continue the profession I was in love with.”</p><p>Sharon hadn’t been expecting that. An ultimatum maybe, give him drugs or he lets the dead in, but he genuinely seemed interested in sticking around. That was as interesting as anything she’d ever heard before. </p><p>She glanced to Earl who had taken his hand off of his gun, his arms instead held behind his back in the way he was when he was most comfortable. If this charming southern man charmed even security Earl he deserved at least a chance.</p><p>“You can stay. But you have to show Earl how you managed to get in. I am Sharon Goodwin, I was head of this hospital. Earl will show you upstairs again when all of this is done.”</p><p>Crockett smiled again before turning to Earl to show him how he had managed to get in when everyone thought the hospital was mostly secure. </p><p>Sharon headed back upstairs to find Daniel staring worriedly at her from a patients room he had been in before she went downstairs. </p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>“We got looted by a doctor, he will be coming upstairs in a moment. You can meet him then.”</p><p>“You trust him?”</p><p>“You can tell me if I was wrong later. I’m going to take a nap.”</p><p>Daniel squeezed her arm but let her head to the nearest empty bed for the nap everyone dreamed of.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Kevin Atwater.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Kevin Atwater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kevin pushed Vinessa behind him as he heard the crashes and thuds a few floors down from them. There were no other people in the apartment building they’d been holed up in most recently and he knew Jordan and Kim wouldn’t be so stupid as to make that much sound when coming back from their run. Whatever it was, it wasn’t safe to investigate it yet.</p><p>She was already scared of what was happening around them, he didn’t need to spook her even further by wandering right into the trap of a zombie right there and then. He’d wait for Kim and he’d try to convince Vinessa to turn back to the card game they’d been focused on before the sounds.</p><p>It took another hour of Vinessa jumping at every howl of the wind and creak of the floor before Jordan and Kim appeared in the doorway. Vinessa had jumped away and hidden behind the mountain that was Kevin Atwater.</p><p>Jordan rushed to console her while Kim emptied what they had found on the table.</p><p>“What’s up?”</p><p>“Did you see anything amiss downstairs?”</p><p>She shook her head, concern written all over her face.</p><p>“The door was easier to open but that could have been anything. What’s wrong?”</p><p>“We heard something a couple of floors down about an hour ago. Didn’t want to risk going down there before you got back.”</p><p>“Want to go check it out?”</p><p>Kevin nodded, glancing back at the kids. He didn’t want to leave them alone though. Neither one of them did. Vinessa noticed him looking and nodded her head shakily, “we’re coming.”</p><p>Jordan slid his hand into his sisters and squeezed. He was with her, they would stay behind the two ex-cops.</p><p>Kim pulled her knife as Kevin held his gun, they knew not to make noise but if something came at her, he would risk a shot going off than he would risk losing her.</p><p>The stairs creaked as they moved down. Kim checked each of the doors to see if they were open, they couldn’t hear much else.</p><p>Nothing was amiss, nothing suggested anything that might have caused the crash earlier, then there was blood.</p><p>It wasn’t a lot. It wouldn’t be considered a crime scene by any means, but blood meant bites and they were always worried about those. A bloodied handprint at the top of the first flight of stairs, a trickle on a door handle, and an open door.</p><p>That would have been enough for them to enter by any means, even without a warrant when they were in uniform. Those rules didn’t apply now, they didn’t have the safety of the badge and shield to protect themselves, this was just another time they put their lives in Gods hands. He hoped for his sibling's sakes that nothing bad was going to come of Kim opening that door.</p><p>She pushed the wood some until she couldn’t any further. Kevin frowned as he gave it a shove and felt the wood was blocked by something behind the door.</p><p>He passed his gun to Kim who stood guard while his siblings cowered on the stairs. They knew Kevin and Kim were badasses they’d seen enough of it as is, now it was entirely something else.</p><p>Kevin shoved at the door until the sound of metal screeching along the floor was heard, Kim flinched at the sound but they could suddenly see into the apartment. See the body lay prone on the floor, no sign that he was breathing.</p><p>Kevin glanced at his siblings, “stay out here.”</p><p>He handed a knife to Jordan who he trusted to keep an eye on their sister while they went inside the apartment.</p><p>Kim slipped inside the door and tried her best to tug the safe that was behind the door out of the way so Kevin could get in behind her.</p><p>They walked slowly to the body until they got close enough to see as much as he was covered in blood he wasn’t one of the zombies.</p><p>She placed her fingers on the pulse point of his wrist, “I have a pulse.”</p><p>Kevin nodded, running a hand through his hair. Whoever this was he’d been through hell only to find this safe place and scare the shit out of his little sister.</p><p>He looked around the place, it was as bare as the day they had cleared it out and moved into one of the higher floored apartments.</p><p>He knelt down beside him and tugged his backpack off of his back so they could roll him flat.</p><p>Kim skimmed her fingers over his head, the blood was congealed but it would need stitches. They couldn’t do that while he was still unconscious though, that was a recipe for disaster if they ever saw one.</p><p>“He’s safe, just the one bloody knife.”</p><p>Kev nodded calling for his siblings to enter, he wanted them close where he could see them.</p><p>Vinessa prodded his prone body with her shoe. “Is he dead?”</p><p>“No, and don’t kick him.”</p><p>She stepped away from him, returning to Jordan’s side. They hadn’t seen many other living people since Kevin had managed to get them out of their neighbourhood and into one of the ones where people had fled almost right away. He didn’t want to think about the chaos that might ensue if they had stayed in their dangerous neighbourhood in this dangerous time.</p><p>Kim was sorting through his bag, “a few spare pairs of clothes, a well endowed medical kit, lots of spare socks, a sleeping bag, flask full of water, whatever happened to him he wasn’t mugged. He’s well prepared to be walking around here, just no food.”</p><p>Kevin nodded, “we aren’t robbing him, and we can’t leave him here alone. With a head wound like that, I can bet concussion may be rolling over him. Vinessa do you think you can get his bag?”</p><p>Vinessa nodded and Kim helped her get it onto her back. “What are you thinking, Kev?”</p><p>“Me you and Jordan are gonna carry him up the stairs, he can recover in the apartment and if he wants to leave after that then that’s up to him but I’m not letting someone die two floors under us.”</p><p>The moving him upstairs was precarious at best, Kevin had him beneath his armpits and Jordan and Kim each had a leg. Vinessa watched from above them on the stairs as they struggled to move him up towards their apartment.</p><p>Kevin huffed out as they reached the third floor, just another one to go.</p><p>“I regret saying four floors was a good idea.”</p><p>Kim grinned, remembering the exhausted argument they’d had almost two weeks ago about exactly that subject. She wasn’t going to rub salt in the wound though, especially after she caught the glare sent her way by, she bit her lip and proceeded to lift him further up the stairs following Kevin’s lead.</p><p>Vinessa giggled as they huffed and puffed to the door, she had dropped the strange man's backpack next to the table in the middle of the room. They waddled over to the couch in the corner and dropped him onto the soft couch that had been Kev’s preferred mattress for the past couple of weeks.</p><p>“That man is deceptively heavy.”</p><p>Kim laughed, “whatever knocked him in the head must have really done a number on him, I’m surprised he didn’t wake at all.”</p><p>Kevin nodded solemnly, that was the worry. They didn’t even know if he would wake up at all, never mind be thankful that they had practically adopted him at this point.</p><p>“We’ll have to keep monitoring his pulse, it won’t do us any good if he dies on us after all of this.”</p><p>Kim nodded, “shifts?”</p>
<hr/><p>Kevin and Kim swapped sitting beside the couch with their fingers on his pulse point every few hours, it didn’t get any weaker but it didn’t get any stronger either. It was still touch and go knowing whether he would wake up again and grace them with his presence.</p><p>The man was groggy the first time his eyes opened, Vinessa had been watching him while the others had been discussing food and what they had. She didn’t really know what they had meant when Kevin had directed her hand to circle his wrist and call them if the pulse dropped, she knew he felt alive and that’s all she cared for.</p><p>His pulse hadn’t really changed as much that they could tell over the past couple of days but it was more a caution now than anything else really.</p><p>His arm twitched where she held hold of it and she squinted down at him to see if he would move again. A long drawn out groan brought her back to the present and had her calling Kev and Kim’s attention back to the stranger on their couch.</p><p>“Hey, hey, don’t touch it.”</p><p>The man flinched and moaned painfully again, allowing Kev to keep him on the couch.</p><p>The man didn’t reach up to touch his head again, but he also didn’t open his eyes fully.</p><p>“Where 'm I?”</p><p>“Chicago. You passed out in an apartment, we moved you upstairs to monitor you. You’ve got a nasty cut on your head but that’s all we know for wounds. We couldn’t outright see anything else.”</p><p>“Oww.”</p><p>Kim bit her lip to ignore the reaction to laugh at the sarcasm that laced his clearly pained tone.</p><p>“Am a sleep.”</p><p>Kev sucked his bottom lip into his mouth as he finally let go of the man again, he’d fallen back into whatever state of unconsciousness he’d been fighting with before.</p><p>“Well at least we know he isn’t dead.”</p><p>Kim nodded, steering the kids away from the couch and into the room. Now that they knew that he was definitely not dead they would only have to check up on him periodically. It also meant they could head out on their next much-needed supply run.</p><p>“We should probably treat that wound on his head now. There was no point in trying before, one dead man wouldn’t have required six antibacterial wipes, now he definitely needs to have that cleaned. I’ll stay behind with Vinessa, we’ll get him cleaned up. If he wakes up and sees a six-foot black man hovering over him he might lash out, I’d say we’re not as threatening.”</p><p>Kevin snorted but nodded, “sounds good, we’ll try and see if we can find any medical supplies, I don’t want to steal out of his medical kit while he isn’t awake to give us permission.”</p><p>Jordan shook his head, “you’re both such cops. Let’s just get going Kev, lights gonna be going down soon.”</p><p>“Right you are.” Kev stuck his tongue out at Kim and Vinessa as the two brothers picked up backpacks and headed out of the door.</p>
<hr/><p>Kim had set Vinessa up next to her as she crouched beside the couch. Her first aid skills were limited from the job, she probably was aware of more from being a flight attendant before she was a cop, but both things seemed so much longer ago than was the truth.</p><p>She didn’t expect Vinessa was prepared for any of this and she didn’t expect her to. She held the medkit open for her so she didn’t have to stretch too far.</p><p>She cleaned the wound first, freezing every time the man groaned in his sleepy state. The cut didn’t look as bad without the blood coating the side of his head. She frowned thinking about stitching it up, she definitely didn’t have that under her belt from any experience and she was worried about waking him. As much as he might have been freaked to have a six-foot black guy hovering over him, anyone with a needle aiming for the top of his head likely wouldn’t go down well either.</p><p>She reached across to tape a gauze pad to the wound when a hand shot up and grabbed her wrist - hard - stopping her.</p><p>She locked eyes with the man, he was more awake than he had been last time and Kim worried for a second just who they had let into their lives.</p><p>“Just bandaging your head.”</p><p>His eyes flicked away from hers to where the gauze was hanging over his face still gripped in her hand.</p><p>His grip loosened on her wrist and she pulled it back away from him, cradling it against her chest. She didn’t judge him for his reaction she just hadn’t expected a man who was just mostly unconscious to have such strength.</p><p>He brought his fingers up to his head and prodded around the wound, hissing between his teeth.</p><p>“Thank you, and sorry.”</p><p>She nodded, glancing back to Vinessa who was watching the man, her eyes wide and scared.</p><p>“I’m Kim, that’s Vinessa.”</p><p>“Connor.”</p><p>He smiled back at her noting how she changed her body language so as not to scare the young girl more than she already was.</p>
<hr/><p>Kevin jogged down the street with Jordan at his heels, they weaved through as many of the slow fuckers as they could until they reached a fairly empty crossroads.</p><p>“Where did you and Kim last look?”</p><p>“That street, and some that veered off.”</p><p>Kev glanced down two of the three streets that looked good before shrugging and motioning for them to just continue straight on, it didn’t make any real difference, whatever happened they would be running back to the apartment with some supplies. Whether they would find what they needed was always 50/50 wherever they went.</p><p>Jordan was a lot less of a handful than he was before all this kicked off, whether he realised how much fear everyone was feeling in this stressful situation or he knew how much Vinessa watching him to see how he responded to this, Kevin would be eternally grateful that he stepped up this time.</p><p>Spotting two shops on either side of a street seemed like a miracle, he was too tired to think anything of it.</p><p>He motioned for Jordan to take the one on the right and he would take the one on the left. The street was pretty void of the dead and they were both armed if they needed it.</p><p>They hadn’t split up for a minute before Kevin heard the shot and spun around to watch one of the dead about to get Jordan fall to the floor after its skull had exploded in Jordan’s face.</p><p>Jordan didn’t have a gun, Kev hadn’t shot it. They couldn’t see whoever it was, but the sound had echoed, it would be moments before the entire street was swarmed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Ethan Choi.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm really sorry for the delay between chapters, I had like a huge story to tell when I first started writing it but it kind of fell apart when I had to focus more on my studies than writing for enjoyment. I hope this is as much as you would expect from what I have written before and I promise I have more to come yet.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ethan hunkered down at the side of a building, he could see the dead meandering about the street between him and the people he was trying to get back to. The kid next to him was scared witless but that was his fault, he’d tried to make a break for it, he knew this area apparently really well but halfway across the block, he’d found a dead end and then couldn’t make it back. </p><p>Ethan had to risk his neck to bring him back, all the while making sure his sister didn’t go trying to get herself killed instead. Knowing she was in Chicago before all this went down and he’d never once gone out to track her down had haunted him deep inside, deep enough that as soon as all of this kicked off she was the only person he had thought of as he fled the safety of the hospital and onto those dangerous streets. </p><p>He could just about see Emily’s bright red coat plastered against a wall just short of escaping off down the street if it wasn’t for the hand holding her there. </p><p>Nurse Sexton who’d followed him out of the hospital at his first chance to flee, demanding to know where he was going. He’d tried to be adamant about leaving, he didn’t know exactly where Emily was living these days and there would be no way she would take his calls even in this situation. He only had a limited amount of time to find her alive until he wandered upon her dead on the streets. He hadn’t wanted that. </p><p>Ethan had tried to shake Sexton off of him, he didn’t need to explain himself to her. </p><p>Then she’d mentioned her brother, and he recognised that big sibling fear in her eyes. They’d made an agreement then, he would help her find her brother if she helped him find Emily, having another pair of eyes to watch your back was appealing to both of them. </p><p>But now with both siblings, it almost felt more painful than anything before. Noah constantly wanted to do everything his way, prove he was smart like the two doctors and Emily constantly wanted to get away from her brother. She’d been in pretty tight with a group of dealers before he’d dragged her away. </p><p>The first time she had run back to join them she’d seen what the dead could do to complacent people. </p><p>Now Ethan felt like he was back on the front lines with all the incapable soldiers in the force. He felt almost slighted by it all, he’d got himself back from over there in one piece and now it was his responsibility as the one with the experience to get everyone out of this safely. It was exhausting. </p><p>He grabbed at the back of Noah’s sweatshirt to stop him making a break for it again, not that he didn’t feel that way inclined, it was just he was pretty sure both of their sisters wouldn’t be too keen on them disappearing on them. </p><p>Noah squirmed in his hold, there was no feasible path through the throngs of the dead without risking their necks or entirely butchering a street. </p><p>All Ethan had was one knife and Noah was practically weaponless if they didn’t count the bit of broken pipe at his feet. This was just one situation that didn’t seem to have a light at the end of the tunnel for them. At least not an easy one. </p><p>He just didn’t know how to plot a path without spooking the others across the street or worrying them enough to think they were running away and leaving them. </p><p>There was a shout across the way and Ethan begged them to be quiet, but by that point, the dead had turned to the sound and Ethan was almost relieved to note that it was not April and Emily drawing them to their death. Instead, they were just as spooked at the other side of the role as a stranger standing on a roof of a stone building across the way waving their arms and distracting them so they could reconvene with their friends. </p><p>Ethan tugged on Noah’s coat until he got his feet under him and at least made sure that they could get through the stragglers without a problem. He did not let go of the boy's coat when he reached them but scowled to realise that someone else was with them. </p><p>A girl with a gun strapped to her hip was trying to convince April and Emily to go with her and what other choice did they have. They had been trying to get back to Med ever since all of this went down, and who knows how the hospital was faring in all of this now. If this person was trying to bring them somewhere safe they should at least half risk it and well Ethan was willing to protect these people with his life if he had to. </p><p>April shared his doubt that this was going to go well, but they only had a limited amount of time before the distraction fell apart and the dead came for five living food sources. </p><p>He nodded his head, kept his hand tight on Noah’s hood he wasn’t about to risk him dashing off again. He had thought he had a rough time trying to keep Emily out of trouble, he wasn’t caught up in the terrors that younger brothers could be. </p><p>The woman held her gun up but it wasn’t pointing at anything. She was just ready to shoot if it was required, she wasn’t looking to shoot just for the sake of it, everyone knew that wasn’t the position they should be in with the dead having ears like anything. One shot could leave you trapped somewhere you didn’t want to be for a hell of a long time. </p><p>She led them down alleys, Ethan figured this was the long route to avoid as many of the dead as they could. </p><p>“What about the distraction?”</p><p>The woman turned around to see April’s worried face, they were medics they didn’t look to leave people behind. </p><p>“He volunteered, plus he got there over rooftops.”</p><p>The woman didn’t seem to assed if the man never made it back and Ethan worried that maybe this wasn’t the situation they wanted to be in. They never would have made it out of there without him, that much he was sure of. </p><p>“So he’ll get back okay?”</p><p>“He’ll probably be back before us.”</p><p>That didn’t particularly clear anything up but Ethan appreciated the sentiment. </p><p>When she finally squirrelled them through a doorway Ethan was shocked at the guns gestured towards them, it wasn’t a threat more of a promise that if they came after them they would surely test their gunpowder was good. </p><p>“Who are you?”</p><p>“April, this is my brother Noah, and that’s Ethan and his sister Emily. We were trying to get to Med.”</p><p>“It’s been shut down.”</p><p>Ethan nodded, “we’re aware, we were in there before it shut down, only got out to pick up my sister and her brother. I’m a doctor she’s a nurse.”</p><p>The guns were finally lowered, as if to some degree they recognised them. </p><p>“I’m Hank, that’s Al, Erin, and Trudy. We’re police this is the precinct.”</p><p>Ethan wasn’t sure if he felt any safer knowing that these people who had guns were police but he guessed he just had to deal with it. </p><p>“Where’s the distraction?”</p><p>Erin shrugged, “Adam’s a survivor.”</p><p>Hank pushed her shoulder, “you shouldn’t have just left him out there.”</p><p>“He volunteered. And anyway we all know he’s going to reappear any second now.”</p><p>The door slammed open and the man crumpled to the floor shutting the door with his body weight. His breaths were coming out hard and fast and his face was red. So it seemed she was correct, he was going to reappear. At least she had some faith, at least that’s what Ethan hoped it was.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next... Hailey Upton!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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